Connection of the Arts
The Folkwang University of the Arts is the central artistic training in music, theater, dance, design and science. Since 1927 Are Here - united under the Folkwang idea of the interdisciplinary cooperation of the Arts - the different art forms and disciplines under one roof. Since 2007, again with the Folkwänglern from the study photography, communication design and industrial design. Today, there are sites Folkwang in Essen, Duisburg, Bochum and Dortmund.

Folkwang a trademark
In 1927, the "Folkwang School of Music, Dance and Speech" was founded in 1928 renamed the existing Essen crafts and arts and crafts in "Folkwang School of Design." More than 80 years the name Folkwang thus stands for outstanding artistic teaching, learning and producing and has long become a cultural brand - far beyond national borders.

Every day, new ideas
Despite our advanced age, we feel more alive and younger than ever. That is partly due to the approximately 1,400 students from nearly every country on earth, on the other hand our year over 300 public events that are on six university's own stage and, together with cultural institutions and partners in the region realized in ever new and fresh. Sure it is but also to the constant process of evaluation and modularization of training opportunities: The recent idea which emerged include the Folkwang LABs, which give the 08/09 winter semester interdisciplinary projects Folkwang a new binding form.

A wonderful place with wonderful people
A special place is the Folkwang University of the Arts, not least because of its unique historic buildings and the many special people who were always here and there: Pina Bausch (dancer and choreographer), Armin Rohde, Caroline Eichhorn (actor), Frank Peter Zimmermann (Geiger), Lothar Zagrosek (conductor), Hagen Rether (comedian), Timm Rautert (photographer) and Klaus Rinke (concept artist) have, for example, studied at Folkwang. A number of important artistic, scientific and creative choices have been made here. And every day for accents: aesthetics, content, cultural policy for the entire region and the international scene.

The Folkwang idea

Music, theater, dance, design, science
The name Folkwang has long become a cultural brand, and well over national borders. For more than 80 years, it stands for music, theater, dance, design, science, the connection between the arts, for interdisciplinary teaching, learning and producing. Today's Folkwang University was founded in 1927 by the Opera Director Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg, the set designer Hein Heckroth and the choreographer Kurt Jooss. She wore the name "Folkwang School of Music, Dance and Speech" and met in Essen on the existing since 1911 "State of artisans and crafts school," which later became the "Folkwang School of Design" and become a part of the Folkwang Hochschule is.

The name
The origin of the name is in the Folkwang Norse mythology. Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874-1921) - the great cultural mediator, patron and museum founder of the region borrowed - the name of the Edda Folkwang in 1902 for his newly founded Museum in Hagen. "Folkwang is" in the Edda, the hall of Freya, the goddess of love and beauty. Karl Ernst Osthaus wanted to revive the industrial area through art and culture. Folkwang should be a meeting place for all citizens of every class - means an encounter with the art, the beauty that belongs not only to the social pattern, but a volkserzieherische claim. In this sense Osthaus founded in 1920, a reform-school, the Folkwang School, which consisted of his premature death, but just under a year.

How did Folkwang in Essen
1922 Hagen Folkwang collection was through the purchase of food and became the Museum Folkwang. Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg, Kurt Jooss, Hein Heckroth and other key protagonists took the name "Folkwang" as a program for their school: the kinship of the Muses was in 1927 an inspiration for the new Folkwang School for Music, Dance and Speech "as well as 1928 for the renaming of the craft and art school in "Folkwang School of Design." Since then, Folkwang stands for the unity of the arts, the idea of interdisciplinary cooperation.

"Without the involvement of art the most important questions of life are insurmountable."

"Folkwang the unity of all arts and all art education is."

"Change through culture - Culture through change."

Quotes by Karl Ernst Osthaus

The Folkwang University is now a place of interdisciplinary artistic and scientific research, teaching and practice. Caught between tradition and modernity are the Folkwang idea is an amount owed, and daily challenge.